Lady Bison Hold On To Defeat Philipsburg-Osceola, 53-50

HYDE – The Clearfield Area High School girls basketball team had lost six games by five points or less coming into Tuesday night’s battle with Philipsburg-Osceola, and this time, finally, a close game went to the Lady Bison, 53-50.

Sophomore Rachel Glenny, off of the bench, fueled the Clearfield win with a game high 16 points. Glenny had 12 second half points and eight of those in the pivotal fourth quarter.

Clearfield Head Coach Joey Castagnolo was obviously pleased with the win, saying, “What a great, exciting game tonight. We hoped we would come out on top in this one. It was great to finally win a close one. The girls got the job done.”

The Lady Bison took a one point lead into the second quarter after winning the first eight minutes 15-14 on a three point bucket by Brianna Spencer with 14 seconds left in the opening stanza.

Spencer, the lone Clearfield senior, had three treys on Senior Night and finished with nine points, all in the first half.

The Lady Mounties took the lead, 17-15, to start the second quarter on a three pointer by junior Abby Showers only to see Spencer hit back to back treys within 30 seconds to push Clearfield back out in front 21-17.

Clearfield would extend its margin to six, 23-17, on a bucket by Emily Aveni before the Lady Mounties cut the deficit to just one at the break, 25-24.

With the defense turned up in the third period the Lady Bison took a six point lead into the final act, 37-31.

Clearfield won the quarter, 12-6 with Aveni paving the way with six points.

The final eight minutes had the Lady Bison out on top, 41-32, with just 5:38 remaining.

Then Lady Mountie Abby Showers took the game into her own hands, scoring 11 of her game high 20 points in the fourth frame to get Philipsburg-Osceola, now 4-17 on the year, back into the thick of things.

With Clearfield out in the lead 51-48, with just 38 seconds left, Alyssa Myers of the Mounties hit what was initially called a three-point shot to knot the score at 51-51.

After the called trey by Myers, Lady Mountie head coach Doug Myers called a timeout assuming the game was tied. However, one official came over to the Mountie bench and informed Philipsburg-Osceola that he was overruled by another official and the shot was actually a two pointer that kept Clearfield in the lead at 51-50.

Bison Emily Ryan was fouled with nine ticks left on the clock and calmly hit both ends of a one and one that made the final 53-50, Clearfield.

Glenny scored eight of the final 12 points for Clearfield while Aveni helped the Bison cause with her second straight game with 12 tallies.

Myers assisted Showers with 17 points.

Castagnolo closed with, “I thought for the most part we controlled the tempo in this game. Now we are looking forward to Friday night and hopefully ending the season on a positive note, if we can beat Bald Eagle Area.”

Clearfield also won the junior varsity game, beating the Lady Mounties by a score 31-11. High scorer for Clearfield was Tessa Waring and Margo Castagnolo with six points each, and for the Lady Mounties Cheyanne Cowfer had five. The Clearfield junior varsity is now 11-8 on the season.

The Lady Bison (4-17) end their season on Friday when they host Bald Eagle Area. JV action begins at 6 pm with the varsity to immediately follow.

On December 17, Clearfield defeated Bald Eagle Area 39-32 on the Lady Eagles’ home floor.